13 August 2007

Remittance rate slows down

According to the Bank of Mexico, the rate of remittances sent home by Mexican migrants slowed down during the first six months of 2006 even though the number of migrants living in the United States increased. The Washington Post described the suspected reasons for the decline in a story last week: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/08/AR2007080802241.html

I recently went to Mezcala, Jalisco, a sad sacked town on the north shore of Lake Chapala that bleeds migrants, for the annual patron saint holiday. The saint is a pretext for hundreds of migrants to return home for two weeks every August. Most of those arriving brought money for their families and gifts for community institutions. As one person there told me, "It's tough to imagine life in Mezcala without remittances."